BELDING, MI — After standing watch over the city for 123 years, the iconic Belding silk mill clock tower’s final days are winding down quickly.

Little besides the tower remains of a once-hulking factory complex that has undergone demolition since late March in the middle of downtown Belding.

Belding Mayor Ron Gunderson said the clock tower — the focus of a two-year legal battle that ultimately failed to prevent its demise — would most likely come down in the next two weeks, although that timeline could change.

The Swedish appliance giant has sought to demolish the entire property over concerns about environmental contamination liability since reacquiring the factory complex in September 2010.

The November agreement ended a David v. Goliath-type lawsuit between the city and the company. It stipulates the top portion of the tower should be preserved, although the company is bound only by “reasonable efforts” to dismantle, preserve, donate and deliver the top of the historic structure to the city.

Gunderson said the wrecking crews are planning to move the top portion of the tower — from the top of the highest window — with a crane, but it’s hard to know whether the structure can survive the process intact.

“They are not held liable if anything happens,” he said.

Historic machinery that was part of the clock and bell mechanisms in the tower will soon be delivered to the city, he said. Detroit-area consultant Golder Associates and Midland contractor Bierlein Companies are managing the demolition work.

Belding received $50,000 from the Frederick Meijer Foundation this year to help pay for reconstruction of the tower, and a committee is being organized by former city councilman Jon Bunce to oversee any rebuilding effort.

So far, though, that effort has not gained much steam. No location for the potentially rebuilt tower has been identified.

“We don’t even know what they are thinking yet,” Gunderson said.

One thing he does know: “It’s going to take a lot more than $50,000 to do this.”

The 4-acre site where the demolition is taking place will eventually become a city park after the state Department of Environmental Quality and Electrolux finish soil contamination cleanup — a legacy of the property’s history as a refrigerator factory.

Electrolux previously owned the property through White Westinghouse in the late 1980s. East Grand Rapids developer Robert Tol bought the complex from the company more than 20 years ago but allowed the buildings to fall into disrepair.

Electrolux will share ownership of the park land with the city, and the company has paid $125,000 toward the park’s development — $50,000 of which went to the Grand Rapids Community Foundation for an endowment to fund park upkeep.

In order for the city to receive that money, Gunderson said the property must be removed from a historic district ordinance developed over the last two years as a way to protect the tower and original Belding Bros. silk mill portion of the factory complex from the wrecking ball.

In some ways, the demolition site represents an open wound for the city, which has been divided over the past several years over prioritizing time and money toward the legal battle with Electrolux, which ended up becoming prohibitively expensive by the time city officials threw in the towel last fall.

As the lone dissenter in that vote, it nonetheless fell to Gunderson as mayor to sign the consent agreement with Electrolux.

He hopes the parkland eventually provides some kind of closure for the community after the tower comes down this month.

“I feel and always felt the building could have been rehabbed,” he said, a position in line with “people who feel like this could have been a very vital part of revitalization for our downtown.”